House Standing Committee on Higher Education

Good afternoon, and aloha, everyone. It is Wednesday, 03/18/2026, few minutes after 02:30pm here in Conference Room 309 at the State Capital. Our members, we have one bill on the agenda today. That's Senate Bill 3263 ST2 relating to University of Hawaii. This bill establishes the NIL I'm sorry.

"Name, image, and likeness" NIL endowment trust fund to be administered by UH. It requires your initial corpus of a certain amount for that endowment fund and requires all interest to be deposited into said fund. Previous allocation of all or any portion of the corpus of the fund requires you to establish an NIL program as well as criteria and a formula for the distribution of funds. It requires that athletes be compensated for their name, image, and likeness to retain a registered athlete agent, allows a student athlete's parent or legal guardian to represent the student athlete in other areas agreed to by them. It requires UH to submit an annual report to the legislature, appropriates funds, its effective date is 07/01/2050. Up first, we have the University of Hawaii via Zoom in support.

Good afternoon. Aloha, Chair Garrett, Vice Chair Mato, and members of the committee. My name is Matt Elliott. I'm the Athletics Director at the University of Hawaii. Thank you very much for hearing this bill, and I apologize for not being there in person, but I'm on the road with one of our teams.

We're very grateful that SB 3263 has been presented at hearing today, and we are here to support the bill. Overall, we believe that a name, image, and likeness framework in the State of Hawaii is critical for us to be able to move forward for our athletics departments to be successful. A bill that provides some funding mechanism or a structure that provides funding mechanism for us to be able to recruit and retain our elite student athletes is vital for us to be able to have our teams do the things that we think are important for athletics and for the State of Hawaii and for the University of Hawaii to overall succeed in its goals. We've seen many states think about different ways and different mechanisms. This is one new mechanism that is proposed here in this bill to be able to fund, athletics and fund NIL and some combination, some partnership that's a public investment and private investment through fundraising, which we're doing through the department, we think is the best way to move forward.

So, right now, you see a great example of this being successful in terms of NIL being applied to a team with our men's basketball program that was able to just win the Big West championship and is now competing in the NCAA tournament. We did create an NIL fund through private funding this year for this team. So, we're already implementing this new framework, and it allowed us to create this roster and have a team that is now, succeeding, amongst its peers and being successful at the level that it's at. So, very much so we'd like to continue to invest in these athletes and these coaches and in our department, do it across the athletics department, and so that we are able to do this in in football, women's basketball, men's basketball, etcetera, and allow us to be successful, not only in in the space that we're in right now, but also in an investment as we move forward into the Mountain West Conference where we know the investment will be even more significant. So thank you very much for supporting this bill, and I'm here for any questions.

Mahalo.

Thank you, AD. We'll give you a pass for not being here in person being that you're in Portland supporting the Green Warriors men's basketball team as they upset Arkansas tomorrow.

That's right.

Well, let us know if you have any questions. Thank you. You are up next, in person, Hawaii Fireworker Stabilization Fund.

Chair Garrett, Vice Chair Amato, Committee Member Olds. Thank you, guys. Cody Sula with Ironworkers Stabilization Fund in support. We submitted our written testimony. Going to stand on that.

I just wanted to make a few comments that we're in big support of this bill, SB3263. We think it's a very small investment into our university system, into our collegiate sports. You know, the University of Hawaii is the only university on this level in our state. It's a source of pride for our people, and it really gathers and brings all of our ohana, whether they're from here or from outside to the state. And thanks to our college sports, they've really made a big impact, not only here, but across the nation.

So we're in big support. Please support our university. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Mister Iosso also testifying in support.

Thank you, chair, committee members. You have my written testimony. I just wanted to say one comment. I think this bill as opposed to the House bill; the corpus is probably an insufficient fund to be able to support NIL for the year. We prefer the House version if it's possible. So, thank you. Any questions, happy to answer.

Ok. Thank you very much. Members, we have testimony in opposition from the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, but I don't see them in the room. Are they on via Zoom? No? Ok. Members, please also know we have testimony from a few other individuals in support. Members, any questions?

Yeah. Actually. I was just here for Cody, if I may, please, chair. So, Cody, did you attend UH?

I did not.

You did not?

I attended the University of Hawaii system, but not Manoa.

I see. Well, my question is, were you involved in any sort of collegiate level sports?

No.

No. Okay. Is there anyone here that was, if I may? So, I don't want to date you guys or age you guys, or anything like that, I am just curious. This was probably not in place; we weren't looking at this back when you were playing sports at the college level, right?

Not for me. Cliff probably was, but it wasn't legal back then.

So, would this have changed your trajectory, having access to an NIL package to help support your education and future career goals?

Well, yeah. I mean, in a way, yes. I think, you know, back when I was playing, I don't mind saying it was '98 through 2001. We lived on a very limited budget. We had about $600 that was supposed to cover our rent, food.

There was no training table that was paid for any travel back and forth that we needed to make. And so having a little bit of extra money would have helped out substantially. You know, we lived in a time where there was probably five or six guys to a two-bedroom apartment just to be able to make ends meet. So, it would have made a big difference for us. I think nowadays is a little bit different because it's not just a nice to have.

It's absolutely essential to continue on the progress that the University of Hawaii, all of the teams are making. Men's basketball, women's volleyball, women's basketball, football, men's volleyball, all those teams, everyone else in between. You have to be able to have this type of NIL support and able to compete.

I tend to agree. But it's nice to hear that this level of support probably would have helped advance your career objectives going forward.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Thank you.

For the record, you turned out just fine, though. Is there anything you wanted to add, Mr. Moore?

Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair, Committee members. Cliff Laboy. I work with Stabilization Fund. Yeah. What Mike just said, we were poor when we played, but the situation with the NIL is a good thing to have nowadays for especially the cost-of-living period.

I'm just upset how the NCAA wouldn't release this program. They should have set standards for linemen, linebackers, DBs, and set a standard on the salary thing. But the way they released it, it went crazy on the Mainland. And we can't compete with those big schools because I have family members right now playing in Oregon making 3,000,000 a year.

Wow.

And the kid was making in the millions as a freshman at Nebraska quarterback. See? So having the money is very important so that we don't lose our good players. Because if we don't have the money, somebody going to take them. It's just how the thing is situated.

I'm hoping they can fix it. I'm hoping that they get together and make sense out of this because schools like ours in the division that we play in can be highly impacted more than other schools because they don't take all the best athletes out of there. They're going to drain them up if they don't have any money.

So in your opinion, this is really important for keeping our local talent here at home. Right?

Yes. And just understand, yeah, that I think the NCAA is allowing $20 million for each school to work their NIL money stuck with all the sports. $5 million is not enough. You know? We probably need 10-15 maybe to 20 as we get into this. Yeah. My opinion: I would have come to you guys asking for $5 million for five years. At the same time, give me time to go build all my fundraising things and get this thing going after five years. We should be okay. You know.

But it is what it is. They need the money. Please help them. If not, we can have a brand-new stadium with a 0-12 record. So, it doesn't make sense. Right? Thank you very much. We ask for your support.

Thank you. Thanks, Chair.

Can you bring the AD back up to us? Yes. Matt, are you still there?

Yes. I'm here. Hello.

Hey. Mr. Laboy mentioned fundraising on the private side. Could you just give the committee an update on where that stands with the department?

Yeah. Our target was to raise $3 million this year to cover the current expenses. So those are the NIL payments we're making from July 2025 through June 2026. We're over two thirds of the way there in terms of the fundraising. So we're over 2 million right now, but trying to get to 3 million for this year to cover those commitments.

But then it will all start again as we go into this next 26-27 year, and that's where we're asking for the funding to cover a minimum of the 5 million, we've committed but know that we need to raise private sector money as well. Sure.

Okay. Thank you very much. Members, any other questions? If not, we'll take the short recess.

Okay, members. Reconvening the House Committee on Higher Education. I will go into decision making on Senate bill 3263 ST 2. I want to thank the Senate for sending their version of the bill over. I think at this point, there's just a slight philosophical difference in terms of approach. The bill we have before us, that's of an endowment fund.

As one of the testifiers mentioned, I don't think we'll ever generate enough money from that fund. We're probably looking at 4 or 500,000 a year, which is not enough to keep the university competitive. It'll be a minimum of 5 million as we heard from the athletic director that's benchmarked to competitors within the Mountain West Conference. So, the chair's recommendation for this bill is to pass out as an HT-1, replacing the contents with our version, House bill 2384. That'd be the latest version, that's currently sitting in the Senate, HD-2.

But what I'm going to do is remove section three. That's specifically the area that had the blank appropriation. I think you folks know, we did insert $5 million in the UH budget as part of HB 1,800 that we voted on earlier today. So we'll separate those two items from this budget. We'll just focus on the framework now, and we'll have the amount discussion within the budgetary process. So with that, members, any discussion? And also, some technical non-substantive changes. Members, any discussion? Ok. seeing none.

And I will note that HD-2 does have an effective date. So with that, vice chair for the for the vote, please.

Thank you, Chair. We're voting on SB 3263. SD-2, Chair's recommendation is to pass with amendments. Chair and Vice Chair vote aye. Representative Evelyn?

Aye.

Rep. Kapella is excused. Representative Kila?

Aye.

Representative La Chica?

Aye.

Representative Olds?

Aye.

Representative Woodson?

Yes.

Representative Muraoka?

Aye.

Representative Souza?

Aye.

Thank you, Chair. Your recommendation is adopted.

Awesome. Okay. With that, we are adjourned. Thank you.